Method and Apparatus to Allocate and Recycle Telephone Numbers in a Call-Tracking System

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment, the invention provides a method. The method includes dynamically allocating a telephone number to an advertisement on a just-in-time basis; and if the telephone number is not called for a predefined period of time, then unallocating the telephone number.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present patent application is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/014,073, filed Dec. 15, 2004, which claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/568,156, filed May 4, 2004, both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to telephone-call tracking. In particular, the invention relates to tracking telephone calls for the purpose of measuring call activity and billing directories and their advertisers according to this activity.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Performance based advertising refers to a type of advertising in which an advertiser pays only for a measurable event that is a direct result of an advertisement being viewed by a consumer. For example, paid inclusion advertising is a form of performance-based search advertising. With paid inclusion advertising, an advertisement is included within a search result page of a key word search. Each selection (“click”) of the advertisement from the results page is the measurable event for which the advertiser pays. In other words, payment by the advertiser is on a per click basis.

Another form of performance-based advertising includes paid placement advertising. Paid placement advertising is similar to paid inclusion advertising in that payment is on a per click basis. However, with paid placement advertising an advertiser ranks a particular advertisement so that it appears or is placed at a particular spot, e.g., at the top of a search engine result page, thereby to increase the odds of the advertisement being selected.

Both forms of performance-based advertising, i.e., paid placement and paid inclusion, suffer from the limitation that an advertiser or participant within a paid placement or paid inclusion advertising program is required to have a web presence, in the form of a web page. However, there are advertisers that either (a) do not have web pages, or (b) have web pages that are not effective at capturing the value of a web visitor, and are therefore unable, or unwilling, to participate in performance-based advertising, as described above.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one embodiment, a method and apparatus to provide pay-per-call performance based advertising is provided. In the method, a telephone number is dynamically allocated to an advertisement on a just-in-time basis and, if the telephone number is not displayed or called for predefined periods of time, then the telephone number is unallocated and recycled.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows how clients and advertisers interact with each other using a paid placement, or a paid inclusion advertising model, in accordance with the prior art;

FIG. 2 shows an interaction between clients and advertisers, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of operations performed in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 shows a high level functional description of a system in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates the Account Creation and Management module of the system, in greater detail;

FIG. 6 illustrates the Advertisement Publication Module of the system, in greater detail;

FIG. 7 illustrates the Call Handling Module of the system, in greater detail;

FIG. 8A shows an example of a user interface that may be presented to a user during advertisement creation, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 8B shows a campaign management interface that is presented to a user, in accordance with one embodiment.

FIG. 9 shows an example of a search engine result page, which includes an advertisement generated, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 10 shows an example of an email alert that is sent to an advertiser, when a call is generated, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 11 shows a high level hardware block diagram of a system that may be used to implement the system, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 12-19 describe processes in accordance with embodiments of the invention to track/credit demand partners;

FIG. 20 presents a flow diagram describing the process of determining a demand partner to be credited with serving an advertisement that produced a phone call;

FIG. 21 presents a flow diagram describing the processes of allocating a telephone number for an advertiser/advertisement to multiple demand partners;

FIG. 22 presents a flow diagram describing one embodiment of recycling telephone numbers;

FIG. 23 provides a flow diagram describing additional processes for allocating telephone numbers in accordance with one embodiment; and

FIG. 24 presents a flow diagram describing the processes of maintaining the separate pools of unique telephone numbers in accordance with one embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the invention can be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring the invention.

Reference in this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments mutually exclusive of other embodiments. Moreover, various features are described which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not by others. Similarly, various requirements are described which may be requirements for some embodiments but not other embodiments.

FIG. 1 of the drawings illustrates how clients and advertisers interact with each other in accordance with the paid placement, and paid inclusion advertising models of the prior art. Referring to FIG. 1, a number of clients indicated by reference numeral 10 are coupled to a wide area network (WAN) 14, such as the Internet via a communications path 12. Advertisers 16 are coupled to the WAN 14 via a communications path 18. The communications paths 12 and 18 may support the TCP/IP protocols, in one embodiment. Each advertiser 16 has a web page 20 which in accordance with the paid placement, and paid inclusion advertising models described above, may be included in a results page of a key word search initiated by a user of a client 10, which search is performed by an online search engine 19. Based on the paid placement, or the paid inclusion models, the web page 20 of an advertiser 16 is included within a results page compiled by the search engine 19 and sent via the communications path 12 to the client 10 that initiated the search, so that the web page 20 may be selected or viewed by a user of the client 10 that requested the search. As noted above, if an advertiser 16 does not have a web page 20, or does not have a web page 20 that is effective at capturing the value of a web visitor, then currently, such an advertiser may not participate, or effectively participate, in performance-based marketing such as paid placement, and paid inclusion programs.

Further, the techniques disclosed herein are not limited to publishing or providing advertisements for the advertisers 16 through web pages. Thus, in alternative embodiments, the unique telephone number assigned to an advertiser may be published or provided using a directory without the creation of a web page for the advertiser. The directory may be an existing directory or a new directory. The placement or ranking of the telephone number within the directory may be controlled through ranking techniques described below.

Referring now to FIG. 2 of the drawings, a method for allowing advertisers to participate in a pay per call advertising program, without requiring that the advertisers have a web presence, in accordance with one embodiment, is illustrated. As will be seen, the clients 10 are coupled to the WAN 14 via the communications path 12, as before. However, the communications path 18 between the advertisers 16 and the WAN 14 is purely optional. In other words, the techniques of the present invention, allow an advertiser 16 to participate in a performance-based advertising program without the requirement that the advertiser 16 be coupled to the WAN 14 via the communications path 18. In fact, in accordance with the techniques disclosed herein, it is not necessary that the advertisers 16 have web pages 20. Instead, in accordance with the techniques disclosed herein, an alternative non-web based communications path 22 is provided between the clients 10 and the advertisers 16. According to embodiments of the present invention, the non-web based communications path 22 may be provided by a conventional telephone network. Alternatively, the non-web based communications path 22 may utilize Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to couple a client through switches of the network 14, and switches of a public telephone network, in a manner that does not require the advertisers 16 to have a connection to the network 14. In addition, the advertiser could be notified via other media channels, such as email, chat, instant message, etc.

FIG. 3 of the drawings illustrates a technique to establish the non-web based communications path 22 of FIG. 2, in accordance with one embodiment. Referring to FIG. 3, at block 26, a unique telephone number is assigned to an advertiser 16. Thereafter, at block 28, an advertisement associated with the advertiser 16 is provisioned or published on a publication or media channel on behalf of the advertiser. The advertisement includes either the unique telephone number, or a reference to the unique telephone number. At block 30, telephone calls to the unique telephone number are monitored, as will be described. At block 32, the advertiser is charged based on the phone call activity through the assigned telephone number, as will be described.

FIG. 4 of the drawings shows a functional description of a system to implement the method of FIG. 3 is shown. Referring to FIG. 4, the system includes account creation and management module 34, advertisement publication module 36, call handling module 38, and billing module 40. In alternative embodiments, additional, less, or different modules may be included in the system without departing from the invention.

The components of the account creation and management module 34, in accordance with one embodiment, are shown in more detail in FIG. 5 of the drawings. Referring to FIG. 5, it will be seen that the account creation and management module 34 includes a user interface module 44, an advertisement creation module 46, and a payment specification module 48. The user interface module 44 includes logic to present information to a user, and to receive information from the user. For example, in one embodiment, the user interface module 44 causes a web page such as the web page 112 of FIG. 8 to be displayed on a browser of a client.

The advertisement creation module 46 includes text creation logic 50. The purpose of text creation logic 50 is to allow an advertiser 16, or an agent working on behalf of an advertiser 16, to input text for an advertisement which is ultimately created by the advertisement creation module 46. In order to enhance understanding of the present invention, for the remainder of this description, a local business enterprise called “Burt's Plumbing” will be used as an example of an advertiser that may benefit from the techniques disclosed herein. Burt's Plumbing may or not have direct connectivity to the network 14. If Burt's Plumbing does not have direct connectivity to the network 14, then a representative of Burt's Plumbing (hereinafter “Burt”) will have to gain access to a computer that does have connectivity to the network 14 in order to view the web page 112 of FIG. 8A. For example, Burt could use a computer of a friend, a computer at a local library, etc. In another embodiment, a search operator, an Internet yellow page provider or other type of publisher could perform or administer this activity on behalf of Burt. The text creation logic 50 allows Burt to input for e.g. the text “Burt's Plumbing in San Francisco. Check out our special deals,” which will be included in the advertisement when it is rendered. The module 46 also includes key word association logic 57 that allows Burt to input certain key words which are then associated with Burt's advertisement. The idea here is that when one of the clients 10 initiates a search through the search engine 19 using a key word that matches one of the key words entered by Burt, then Burt's advertisement will be displayed within a result of the search. Since Burt's Plumbing is not a national operation or enterprise it is necessary to display Burt's advertisement to clients within a certain geographic area. Thus, the module 46 includes location determination logic 54 that builds a geographic location association to Burt's advertisement. In one embodiment, the location determination logic 54 allows Burt to select a particular geographic location of interest, say for example San Francisco, so that Burt's advertisement will only be displayed to clients within the San Francisco area.

The module 46 also includes telephone number auto generation logic 56 that automatically generates a unique telephone number, maps the unique telephone number to Burt's actual telephone number such that when the unique number is called, Bert's phone rings, and associates the unique phone number with Burt's advertisement. In one embodiment, the telephone number that is automatically generated, may be a toll free number. In one embodiment, the telephone number may be a local number with the same area code as Burt's actual telephone number. In one embodiment, the telephone number may be an easily recognizable 800 number, modified by a unique extension mapped to Burt's business telephone number. For example, in one embodiment, a number could be the number “1-800-YEL-PAGES-1234.” The 1234 portion of the 800 number is the unique extension that is mapped to Burt's telephone number so that when a searcher calls the number 1-800-YEL-PAGES-1234, the call will be automatically routed to Burt's telephone as will be described in more detail below.

In one embodiment, the advertisement creation module 46, automatically inserts the unique telephone number assigned to Burt directly into Burt's advertisement. Alternatively, click to call logic 58 may be invoked in order to generate a button, or a clickable telephone number, which is automatically inserted into Burt's advertisement, so that when the button or telephone number is selected or clicked by a user operating a client 10, a telephone call is automatically initiated to Burt's telephone number.

The module 46 also includes on/off logic 60 that allows Burt to selectively turn on or turn off an advertisement. Alternatively, the turn on/off logic 60 allows Burt to assign an active or an inactive status to a particular advertisement. When an advertisement is turned off or flagged as inactive, it is considered withdrawn, at least temporarily, from an advertisement campaign, and is therefore not made published e.g. through the search engine 19. Alternatively, only advertisements that are turned on, or have a status of “active” are published in accordance with the techniques disclosed herein.

The module 46 includes smart connect logic 62 that allows automatic routing of calls to various telephone numbers. For example, Burt may include a primary telephone number, and one or more secondary telephone numbers to be associated with his advertisement. Thus, in one embodiment, the smart connect logic 62 first routes the call to Burt's primary telephone number, and if no connection is achieved, then cyclically through Burt's list of secondary telephone numbers, until a connection is achieved.

The module 46 also includes arrange a call logic 64 that allows a searcher to input a time at which the searcher wishes to speak to Burt. The system then contacts Burt in order to arrange the call with the searcher. Burt may be contacted in a variety of ways, for example by sending a facsimile to Burt, by sending an email to Burt, by telephoning Burt, etc. to alert him of the arranged telephone call. In alternative embodiments, additional, less, or different logic may be included in the advertisement creation module without departing from the invention.

The payment specification module 48, allows Burt to select a particular model and various parameters associated with billing. The module 48 includes flat fee logic 66 that presents an option to Burt through the user interface module 44, which if selected will cause Burt to be billed on a flat fee basis for each telephone call received within a particular category, or subcategory. The module 48 also includes bid for placement logic 68, that, through the user interface module 44, presents an option to Burt to choose to be billed on a bid-for-placement basis, as described above. The logic 68 supports proxy bids, and maximum/minimum bids.

The module 48 also includes spending level logic 70 that allows Burt to specify daily/weekly/monthly spending levels. The specified spending level essentially defines a budget per time period such that if the budget is exceeded within a particular time period, then Burt's advertisement will be automatically flagged as inactive or turned off, for the remainder of the time period. Burt is notified of this activity by the system and Burt is given the option of reactivating his advertisement by adding additional funds to his account.

In one embodiment, the billing module 40 includes logic to automatically waive charges for leads (calls) from searchers/customers who have called Burt recently. For example, if a customer calls on one day, and then dials the same number for a follow-up call a day later, the system automatically waives the charge for the second call since this lead has already been paid for. Thus, the advertiser (Burt) does not have to be concerned about a customer using the advertised telephone number more than once and causing multiple charges. In one embodiment, the system of the present invention may be configured to waive the charges on leads from customers who have already called a particular advertiser within a specified number of days. In alternative embodiments, additional, less, or different logic may be included in the without departing from the invention.

Referring now to FIG. 6 of the drawings, the components of the advertisement publication module 36, are shown in greater detail. As will be seen, the module 36 includes an advertisement rendering engine 74, and an advertisement syndication engine 76. The purpose of the advertisement rendering engine 74 is to automatically render Burt's advertisement on a particular channel. In some embodiments, the advertisement rendering engine 74 causes a campaign management interface 113 (see FIG. 8B of the drawings) to be displayed to an advertiser. The interface 113 allows the advertiser to choose a channel, e.g., SBC, QwestDex, Ingenio, and a category in which the advertisement is to be provisioned/published. The interface 113 allows the advertiser to specify the maximum bid amount that the advertiser is willing to pay to provision the advertisement using the selected channel and category. FIG. 9 of the drawings shows an example of a web page 112 within which includes an advertisement rendered/provisioned in accordance with the techniques described herein. In one embodiment, this publication channel may be a web-based publication channel which is operated by an operator of the system of the present invention.

Alternatively, the syndication engine 76 may be used to syndicate Burt's advertisement to a number of third parties that host publication channels selected by Burt. Thus, in one embodiment, the syndication engine 76 may cause Burt's advertisement to be syndicated to third party search engines, Internet yellow pages, online directories, and other media.

As will be seen in FIG. 6 of the drawings, the advertisement rendering engine 74 includes price per call logic 78, activity history logic 80, call status logic 82, connection success logic 84, manual indexing logic 86, and random logic 88. Each of the logic components 78-88 controls a parameter that forms a basis of how Burt's advertisement is ultimately rendered. The price per call logic 78 causes Burt's advertisement to be published on a price per call basis. Thus, for example, if Burt is willing only to pay a low amount for each call, then his advertisement will be placed or ranked low down within a search result page or category of advertisers. Alternatively, if Burt is willing to pay a high price per call, then his advertisement will be placed higher up in the search result page or category of advertisers. The table below shows how the price per call logic 78 would rank or place advertisers within a channel based on a bid amount per call that an advertiser is willing to pay:

Placement Advertiser (Bid Amount per call) 1 800-349-2398 ($3.88) 2 866-324-3242 ($3.22) 3 800-323-5321 ($2.01)

The activity history logic 80 analyzes the number of calls Burt received in a give time period, for example, the last day/week/month, and will rank Burt's advertisement within a display page based on the activity history. The call status logic 82, examines the status (active or inactive) of Burt's advertisement, and selectively publishes Burt's advertisement based on the status. The connection success logic 84 measures a connection success rate for calls to the telephone number assigned to Burt's advertisement and ranks Burt's advertisement within a display page based on the connection success rate. For example, if Burt's telephone number enjoys a low connection success rate then the logic 84 will cause Burt's advertisement to be ranked lowly within a publication page. The manual indexing logic 86 allows an operator to manually index or rank Burt's advertisement within a publication page. The random logic 88 allows Burt's advertisement to be randomly ranked or placed within a result page. In one embodiment, the ranking of Burt's advertisement within a display page may be based on any combination of the parameters controlled by the logic components 78-88, which may be dictated by a third party who employs the system. In alternative embodiments, additional, less, or different logic may be included in the advertisement rendering engine 74 without departing from the invention.

Referring now to FIG. 7 of the drawings, the components within the call handling module 38 include a call routing engine 92, and a call monitoring engine 94. As will be seen, the call routing engine 92 includes redirect logic 96 to cause redirection of a telephone call to the number assigned to Burt's advertisement. The redirection is to a telephone number specified by Burt during creation of the advertisement using the advertisement creation module 46. The call routing engine 92 also includes VoIP logic 98 to route a telephone call to or from a client to a telephone number specified by Burt in the advertisement using VoIP technology.

The call routing engine 92 may also include prompt logic 99 that causes a prompt to be played to a caller before routing of a telephone call to Burt's telephone number. In one embodiment, the prompt logic 99 plays an information prompt to the caller to inform the caller of Burt's actual telephone number. Thus, the caller may, in future, call Burt directly using Burt's actual telephone number instead of the telephone number assigned to Burt by the system. In such cases, Burt will not be billed by the system for telephone calls to his actual telephone number. In one embodiment, the prompt logic 99 may also cause an information prompt to be played to Burt to inform Burt of the source of the telephone call. In some cases, the prompt logic 99 may cause an email or facsimile alert to be automatically generated and sent to an advertiser, in order to inform the advertiser of the telephone number of the caller. An example of such an email is shown in FIG. 10 of the drawings and is marked as reference numeral 116. In alternative embodiments, additional, less, or different logic may be included in the call routing engine 92 without departing from the invention.

The call monitoring engine 94 includes call number logic 100 to track the number of calls generated in response to Burt's advertisement. The call monitoring engine 94 also includes Automatic Number Identification (ANI) logic 102 to identify the number of unique numbers of callers that call Burt, automatically. The call monitoring engine also includes call length logic 104 that monitors the length of each call to Burt. Connection status logic 108 monitors whether a call is successful, whether an engaged or busy tone is encountered, or whether Burt simply did not answer his telephone. Based on information supplied by logic components 100-106, a report is compiled and may be viewed by Burt. In one embodiment, the report includes a number of calls, the number of calls from unique telephone numbers, the telephone numbers of the callers, the length of each call, and the number of calls that were successful, for which an engaged tone was returned, or that went unanswered. The report may be used by Burt in order to monitor the effectiveness of an advertisement campaign, and to optimize the campaign. In alternative embodiments, additional, less, or different logic may be included in the call monitoring engine 94 without departing from the invention.

In one embodiment, the advertising publication module may publish the advertisement on a telephone-based advertising service. For example, the advertisement can be delivered to a consumer through audio as part of a voice portal or telephone-based directory such as a 411 telephone directory.

Referring to FIG. 11 of the drawings, reference numeral 150 generally indicates hardware that may be used to implement the above-described system. The hardware 150 typically includes at least one processor 152 coupled to a memory 154. The processor 152 may represent one or more processors (e.g., microprocessors), and the memory 154 may represent random access memory (RAM) devices comprising a main storage of the hardware 150, as well as any supplemental levels of memory e.g., cache memories, non-volatile or back-up memories (e.g. programmable or flash memories), read-only memories, etc. In addition, the memory 154 may be considered to include memory storage physically located elsewhere in the hardware 150, e.g. any cache memory in the processor 152, as well as any storage capacity used as a virtual memory, e.g., as stored on a mass storage device 160.

The hardware 150 also typically receives a number of inputs and outputs for communicating information externally. For interface with a user or operator, the hardware 150 may include one or more user input devices 156 (e.g., a keyboard, a mouse, etc.) and a display 158 (e.g., a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitor, a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel).

For additional storage, the hardware 150 may also include one or more mass storage devices 160, e.g., a floppy or other removable disk drive, a hard disk drive, a Direct Access Storage Device (DASD), an optical drive (e.g. a Compact Disk (CD) drive, a Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) drive, etc.) and/or a tape drive, among others. Furthermore, the hardware 150 may include an interface with one or more networks 162 (e.g., a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a wireless network, and/or the Internet among others) to permit the communication of information with other computers coupled to the networks. It should be appreciated that the hardware 150 typically includes suitable analog and/or digital interfaces between the processor 152 and each of the components 154, 156, 158 and 162 as is well known in the art.

The hardware 150 operates under the control of an operating system 164, and executes various computer software applications 166, components, programs, objects, modules, etc. (e.g. a program or module which performs operations described above. Moreover, various applications, components, programs, objects, etc. may also execute on one or more processors in another computer coupled to the hardware 150 via a network 152, e.g. in a distributed computing environment, whereby the processing required to implement the functions of a computer program may be allocated to multiple computers over a network.

As discussed above, the syndicate engine 76 is used to syndicate Burt's advertisement to a number of third parties. Additional examples of third parties include companies such as Yahoo!®, MSN®, AOL®, and other similar demand partners. Often times, these demand partners (also referred to herein as syndication partners) receive a percentage of the advertising revenue generated via the pay-per-call method and system described, herein. Thus, as in the example of the table above, the advertiser of placement 1 pays $3.88 per call received to phone number 800-349-2398. Now suppose the call to the advertiser of placement 1, resulted from an advertisement presented on a demand partner's website. The demand partner would be entitled to a percentage of that $3.88. The present method and system offers multiple embodiments for tracking, monitoring, and determining demand partner compensation.

In one embodiment, described in the flow diagram of FIG. 12, in process 1202 an advertiser (also referred to herein as a merchant or listing) is given a separate telephone number for each separate demand partner that is posting the merchant's advertisement using. As described herein, in multiple embodiments, telephonic references, including telephone numbers and telephone extensions corresponding to a base telephone number, are assigned using the telephone number auto generation logic 56.

In one embodiment, the alias phone number is mapped to the advertiser's actual phone number, and calls made to the alias are monitored in order to track the respective demand partners. Therefore, in process 1204 billing module 40 tracks and/or credits demand partners a percentage of the revenue charged to the advertiser (or collected from the advertiser) for calls placed to the advertiser's alias telephone number corresponding to the respective demand partner.

In another embodiment, described in the flow diagram of FIG. 13, in process 1302 an advertiser receives a single/base (the same) telephone number for a set of the demand partners. In process 1304, a separate extension is assigned to the advertiser for each of the separate demand partners. More specifically, the separate demand partners list the same telephone number for the advertiser, but also include an extension unique to the respective demand partner. For example, a listing could have the number “(800) new-cars” for the set of demand partners, but each demand partner posting the common telephone number for the advertiser would also provide a separate extension corresponding to the respective demand partner (e.g., ext. 102 corresponding to the XYZ syndication partner, ext. 104 corresponding to the ABC syndication partner, etc.) In process 1306, billing module 40 tracks and/or credits a demand partner a percentage of the revenue charged to the advertiser (or collected from the advertiser), for calls placed to the advertiser via the telephone extension corresponding to the respective demand partner.

In an alternative embodiment, described in the flow diagram of FIG. 14, in process 1402 a demand partner uses a base telephone (i.e., a single) number for a set of advertisers. In process 1404, the demand partner provides a separate extension to each of the advertisers using the same base number. For example, the demand partner could use the telephone number (800) Call XYZ for a set of advertisers, and provide the extension 102 for Joe's plumbing, and extension 104 for Carl's plumbing, etc. In process 1406, billing module 40 tracks and/or credits a demand partner a percentage of the revenue charged to the advertiser (or collected from the advertiser), for calls placed to the advertiser via the base telephone number corresponding to the respective demand partner and the unique telephone extension assigned to the advertiser at the respective demand partner.

According to another embodiment, a click-to-reveal method is proposed, as described in co-pending U.S. Patent Application No. 60/552,124, entitled “A Method and Apparatus to Provide Pay-Per-Call Performance Based Advertising and Billing” filed on Mar. 10, 2004, herein incorporated by reference. As described in the flow diagram of FIG. 15, in process 1502 a user is presented with an advertisement via a demand partner's website. The advertisement does not show the advertiser's complete phone number, but instead contains a hyperlink to reveal the advertiser's phone number, or the remaining portion of the telephone number. In process 1504, the Advertisement rendering engine 74 monitors the number of click-throughs to reveal the advertiser's number. In one embodiment, it is assumed that each click-through from a demand partner results in a call to the respective advertiser. As a result, in process 1506 billing module 40 tracks and/or calculates an amount to credit a demand partner based at least in part on a number of click-throughs to reveal an advertiser's telephone number.

In yet another alternative embodiment, a demand partner is provided with a click to call format. In one embodiment, as described in the flow diagram of FIG. 16, in process 1602 in addition to listing a telephone number for an advertiser (or in place of listing a telephone number for the advertiser) a link is provided by the demand partner to initiate establishing a telephone connection between the viewer/customer and the advertiser in response to the viewer/customer activating/selecting the hyperlink provided. In one embodiment, in process 1604, in response to activating/selecting the hyperlink provided, the viewer/customer is prompted for their telephone number to establish the telephone connection with the advertiser. After the customer enters their telephone number, a telephone connection is established between the customer and the advertiser.

In yet another embodiment, if the viewer/customer has a VoIP communications device, VoIP logic 98 may connect the advertiser to the viewer/customer without the need for the customer/viewer to provide their telephone number. The VoIP communications device includes telephony devices attached to the user's computer, as well as mobile communication devices, such as PDA's and cellular phones.

In the embodiment employing a click to call (for PSTN and VoIP connections), in process 1604, a demand partner providing the click to call option would be tracked/credited (i.e., a percentage of the charge to the advertiser) each time a viewer/customer selects/activates a click to call icon for the respective advertiser.

In another embodiment, described in the flow diagram of FIG. 17, in process 1702 an advertiser is given one telephone number for a set of demand partners. In process 1704, credits to the demand partners for calls placed to the advertiser's listed telephone number are prorated based on a number of page views for the advertiser's telephone number listing via the respective demand partners. For example, if 70% of the advertiser's page views are accessed via demand partner ABC, and 30% of the advertiser's page views are accessed via demand partner XYZ, the ABC demand partner would receive 70% and the demand partner XYZ would receive 30% of the credits payable to the demand partners for calls placed to the advertiser's listed telephone number.

In another embodiment, described in the flow diagram of FIG. 18, in process 1802 at least a first set of advertisers are given unique telephonic reference for each demand partner. One or more advertisers are each given one telephonic reference for a set demand partners.

In process 1804, a statistical sampling of calls to advertisers with the unique telephonic reference is generated. In one embodiment, the statistical sampling represents a sampling of a percentage of calls to an advertiser (or set of advertisers) that originate from an advertisement listed by a first demand partner compared to calls that originate from the same (or similar) advertisement listed by other demand partners. In one embodiment, the samplings may be separated based on a category of advertisers (e.g., restaurants, automobiles, etc.).

In process 1806, the samplings are used as a basis for tracking/crediting the demand partners with a percentage of the charges to at least a set of the advertisers. Consider the example advertisers 1 and 2 are given each give unique telephone, and 70% of the calls to advertisers 1 and 2 are from telephonic references listed by partner ABC. Given the example, an assumption is made that 70% of the calls to the advertisers using a common number among the demand partners, are originated from advertisements listed by partner ABC.

Therefore, in one embodiment, based on the statistical sampling, partner ABC would be credited for 70% of the calls placed to the advertisers using a common number among the demand partners. In one embodiment, tracking/crediting the demand partners based on the statistical sampling could also be applied to the advertisers using unique numbers among the demand partners.

Allocating and Recycling Telephone Numbers

As described above, telephone-call tracking is used to determine the number of phone calls a particular party, or directory, has received. It can be useful for a variety of purposes. It is particularly useful in measuring the success of advertising. For instance, a telephone directory may offer advertising placements to its advertisers, such as plumbers. By tracking the number of phone calls a particular advertisement has received, the directory can demonstrate the value of its advertising to the advertiser.

Telephone-call tracking can be used to measure the effectiveness of a variety of advertising vehicles in addition to the physical yellow-pages phone book. Newspaper classifieds can utilize call tracking, as can television commercials that display phone numbers for consumers to call. By counting the number of telephone calls such advertisements receive, the campaign's effectiveness can be measured. This is of benefit both to the advertiser and to the directory.

Telephone-call tracking can be also used as such in directories that are online, such as an online yellow pages. Similarly, it can be used to track the success of online search advertising, such as keyword advertising.

Telephone-call tracking is particularly useful in pay-for-performance advertising systems, as described in several embodiments above. In pay-for-performance systems, advertisers pay when an advertisement performs. For instance, an advertiser can pay $1 each time a potential customer clicks on an online-search advertisement. Similarly, in pay-per-call advertising systems, such as that covered in Application Number X (application Ser. No. 10/872,117), an advertiser's payments are linked to the number of calls that advertiser receives. In such a pay per call advertising system, call tracking is vital, since counting the number of calls received determines the amount that the advertiser must pay. In one embodiment, not only are the number of calls received counted but also the time of the call, since in one embodiment an advertiser may bid to pay a higher price per call in order to receive a more prominent placement for their advertisement.

Not only is it important to track the number of calls and precise time of calls, but the demand source at which the caller viewed the advertisement may also be tracked. Online directories can have many different external web sites through which they syndicate the same advertisers, and it is important to know from which web site the phone call originated so that, in some cases, the directory can compensate the external web site for having brought customer. Application Number Y (Application No. 60/560,926) outlines this case.

Tracking phone calls may include publishing a unique phone number that is different from the advertiser's standard phone number. When a caller views the advertisement, the unique phone number appears, and the caller dials it. The call coming in on the unique phone number is then rerouted, using the call tracker's telephony equipment, to the advertiser's standard phone number. In addition to rerouting the call, the call tracker also records that a call was made and the precise time of the call. In a pay-per-call advertising system, this information can be used to bill the advertiser for the call.

In cases where directories would also like to identify the demand source of the call, a single advertiser will have to be given multiple unique phone numbers, one for each demand source where that advertiser appears. For instance, the advertisement of a single plumber might be displayed in two different online directories and three different online search engines. In order to track which of these demand sources produced a call from a customer, the single plumber would have to be assigned five different unique telephone numbers. By monitoring which unique phone number was dialed, it can be determined which demand source deserves the credit for producing the call.

A potential problem with this approach is that it can require very many unique phone numbers. A single plumber could have five different advertisements, which each could be syndicated across 100 web-site directories, resulting in the provisioning of 500 unique phone numbers just to track the call distribution of a single plumber. A directory with 100,000 advertisers would need many millions of unique phone numbers to track call distribution. Unique phone numbers, either local numbers or toll-free 1-800 numbers, can be expensive to provision. Using large quantities of them as outlined above is prohibitively expensive.

One embodiment of the present invention, therefore, provides a system to allocate and recycle telephone numbers. In one embodiment, the telephone numbers are allocated dynamically, only when they are needed. As a result, far fewer numbers are necessary. For instance, it could be that a particular plumber's advertisement for “industrial shower heads” might never be displayed at a certain search engine website. It would therefore be wasteful to allocate a unique phone number for that advertisement at that website. Only if a customer searches for “industrial shower heads” at that particular website should the system, dynamically, at that moment, allocate a unique phone number. This way, numbers would only be allocated when they are needed, and waste would be reduced.

In addition, one embodiment of the present invention recycles numbers, thereby further reducing the total amount of numbers needed. For example, if a certain amount of time has passed since a unique number has been displayed, the system may automatically consider the number “clean” and recycle it, placing it back into the pool of numbers. Similarly, if a certain amount of time has passed since a unique number has been called, the system may automatically consider the number “clean” and recycle it, placing it back into the pool of numbers. Using these and other parameters, one embodiment of the present invention conserves and recycles unique telephone numbers, requiring less telephone numbers and potentially reducing cost.

FIG. 19 provides a flow diagram describing the processes of allocating telephone numbers in accordance with one embodiment. Referring to FIG. 19, in process 1902 a telephone number is dynamically allocated to an advertisement on a just-in-time basis. For example, the telephone number is allocated in response to an end-user search submitted to a demand partner that would call for a particular advertiser's telephone number to be displayed. In one embodiment, a pool of unallocated telephone numbers is maintained. An unallocated telephone number is a telephone number that is not preassigned or linked in any way to a particular advertisement, advertiser, or demand partner. The process 1902 is performed by selecting a telephone number from the pool of unallocated telephone numbers and allocating the selected telephone number to the advertisement on a just-in-time basis. By use of the term “just-in-time basis” it is meant that the telephone number remains in the pool of unallocated telephone numbers and gets assigned or allocated to a particular advertisement just before a customer is about to view an advertisement that would include the telephone number.

In process 1904, if the telephone number that was allocated to the advertisement is not called for a predefined period of time, then the telephone number is unallocated and recycled into the pool of unallocated telephone numbers. For example, in one embodiment, the predefined period may be a fixed number of days. If no telephone call is made to the telephone number, then the telephone number gets unallocated.

In reference to FIG. 19, if the allocated telephone number does get called within the predefined time period, then the telephone number is correlated with the advertisement/advertiser to which it was allocated. Once the telephone call using the allocated telephone number is made, then the allocated telephone number is assigned to the advertiser associated with the advertisement (herein after the “associated advertisement”). Otherwise, if the allocated telephone number is not called, then the number remains free, and may be used for all demand partners.

In one embodiment, if the advertisement served by a demand partner results in a query, but no telephone call, then the dynamically allocated telephone number is associated with the advertisement for a predefined period of time. If the dynamically allocated telephone number is called within that predefined period of time, then the telephone number is associated with the advertisement for a longer period of time.

Referring again to FIG. 19, in process 1906, it is determined in connection with which advertisement the call to the allocated telephone number occurred. This determination is made for purposes of compensating/crediting demand partner that was the effective cause of the telephone call to the allocated telephone number.

FIG. 20 presents a flow diagram describing the process of determining a demand partner to be credited with serving an advertisement that produced a phone call. In one embodiment, the determination is based on a temporal proximity between when a demand partner served the associated advertisement, and when the call occurred. In process 2002, if a particular demand partner was the only demand partner that served the associated advertisement within a predefined time period before the call occurred, then in process 2004 the particular demand partner is determined to be the demand partner in connection with which the call occurred. For example, if a demand partner X was the only demand partner that served the associated advertisement say within the past 30 minutes, then the demand partner X is determined to be the demand partner in connection with which the telephone call was made.

In one embodiment, if more than one demand partner served the associated advertisement within a predefined time period before the call occurred, then in process 2006 the telephone call is counted as part of a pool of disputable telephone calls. In one embodiment, in process 2008 credit is given to particular demand partners for which calls are placed in the pool of disputable calls, based on the proportion of indisputable calls attributable to the particular demand partner. For example, if a particular demand partner X has been attributed 70% off the indisputable calls, then demand partner X will also be attributed 70% off the calls in the disputable pool.

In another embodiment, the same telephone number may be allocated to different demand partners for the same advertiser/advertisement, thereby to reduce the number of required telephone numbers. FIG. 21 presents a flow diagram describing the processes of allocating a telephone number for an advertiser/advertisement to multiple demand partners. In process 2102, if an advertisement is served by a first demand partner, and then by a second demand partner within a predefined period of time, say 30 minutes, then in process 2104 the second demand partner would be allocated a new or different telephone number. However, if the service on the second demand partner occurs beyond the predefined period of time (30 minutes), then in process 2106 the same telephone number may be allocated to the second demand partner. In general, the longer the period within which no call occurs after the first service, the more feasible it becomes to use the same telephone number allocated to the first demand partner since the probability of having a disputable telephone.

Example Implementation of Allocating Telephone Numbers

An example of the one embodiment of the A web advertising company promotes advertisements from local merchants—plumbers, roofers, dentists—all across the country. It promotes the advertisements by syndicating them at 1,000 different web sites. To track the call activity that results from these promotions, the advertising company maintains a pool of 50,000 unique phone numbers.

For instance, at a single website, at the moment when a user searches for “dentist in Kansas City,” the advertising company communicates with the website to insert advertisements for the ten dentists who have purchased advertising for the Kansas City area. The ten dentists have purchased the advertising by agreeing to “pay per call,” meaning they will pay a fee, such as $5, at the moment a call comes in from a potential customer. The dentists can pay a higher fee if they would like to be displayed higher than their peers. The advertising company displays the dentists in descending order from the highest per-call price to the lowest.

When the advertising company displays the three advertisements upon the website, it dynamically allocates unique phone numbers that appear in the advertisements. This way, if a dentist is called by a potential customer, the advertising company can determine which website was responsible for the call taking place. It can also determine the time of the call and bill the dentist the amount the dentist had agreed to pay per call at that moment. Once having done so, the advertising company routes the call to the dentist's standard phone number, and the dentist receives the call.

Of the ten unique telephone numbers that were displayed, several of them were toll-free 1-800 or 1-866 numbers. One of them was a local Kansas City 913 area-code number because that dentist requested that his advertisement only be shown with a unique phone number that appears to be local.

The advertising company is syndicating the ten dentists' advertisements across 1,000 different websites. Throughout the day, it is continually displaying the ten dentists at hundreds of different sites, whenever an end user happens to search on dentists in Kansas City. In order to track the resulting call activity, if the advertising company were to allocate a unique telephone number for each dentist at each of the 1,000 websites, it would have to allocate 10,000 unique telephone numbers. Since unique telephone numbers are costly to provision and maintain, this would be a very expensive proposition. The adverting company must find a way to minimize the unique telephone numbers it allocates, and by no means can it use more than the 50,000 total unique numbers it has in its pool.

In order to reduce the unique telephone numbers it must allocate, the advertising company uses the present invention to dynamically allocate and recycle unique telephone numbers. In the case of the Kansas City dentists, it does not allocate all 10,000 combinations to begin with. Instead, it only allocates a unique telephone number at the moment a search is done for Kansas City dentists at a particular website. The dynamic, “just in time” allocation, prevents the wasteful allocation of numbers to advertisements that may never be summoned and displayed.

Recycling Allocated Telephone Numbers

In one embodiment, a system records that a particular advertiser's advertisement was displayed at a certain time at a particular website with a particular unique telephone number. As more and more advertisements are displayed at different websites, in one embodiment the system keeps track of when each of the allocated telephone numbers were respectively last displayed.

FIG. 22 presents a flow diagram describing one embodiment of recycling telephone numbers. In one embodiment, in process 2202 an active “display queue” of telephone numbers is maintained. The active display queue lists the telephone numbers according to the time they have been displayed from “youngest” (displayed recently) to “oldest” (displayed longer ago).

When, for instance, an advertiser's advertising is displayed at a particular website and a unique telephone number is required, in process 2204 a telephone is selected from the “oldest” end of the display queue, or a telephone number that has not relatively recently been displayed. Since presumably there is a finite pool of numbers it could be that the phone number that is picked has been used before. But since it is the “oldest” number—displayed perhaps five weeks ago, there is a greater probability that this number will not be confused with the advertisement it was displayed with in the past. In this way, telephone numbers are recycled based on the time of last display to reduce potential confusion.

In one embodiment, in process 2206 the system determines if the selected telephone number was recently displayed within a predefined period of time. For instance, the system can check whether a telephone number was displayed in a different context within, for example, in the last 24 hours. If the selected telephone number was displayed within the predefined period of time, in process 2208 then the number pool is in danger of over-recycling and the selected telephone number is not allocated at that time.

If the system determines the selected telephone number was not displayed within the predefined period of time, in one embodiment, in process 2210 the system proceeds to determine whether the selected telephone phone number was recently called within a predefined period of time. For example, if a telephone number was displayed on a dentist's advertisement three months ago, but last called yesterday, it could introduce confusion if the number is reallocated to a plumber today.

If the system determines that the selected telephone number has not been displayed within a predefined period of time (e.g., 24 hours) and has not been called within a second predefined period of time (e.g., the last 30 days), in process 2212 the system deems the selected telephone number to be safe, and the selected telephone number is allocated to be displayed in a new context.

As previously described, if the selected number (presumably the “oldest number” displayed) was last displayed within the predefined period of time, the selected number does not pass the minimum threshold. As a result, the number pool may then be in jeopardy of over-recycling and alternative measures are taken by the system to select a telephone number for allocation.

In one embodiment, the system then evaluates the number pool based on how often the numbers have been called. In one embodiment, the system maintains an active “call-time queue” of the telephone numbers that have been called, listing them from “youngest” (called recently) to “oldest” (called longer ago). In process 2214, if the “oldest” number in the display queue was last displayed within the predefined period of time, in one embodiment, the system then evaluates the “oldest” number in the call-time queue. If the “oldest” number in the call-time queue was last called in greater than the second predefined threshold, then system selects the “oldest” number in the call-time queue to be allocated.

If neither the “oldest” number in the display queue nor the “oldest” number in the call-time queue meets the respective minimum thresholds, then other measures may be taken by the system. In process 2216, the system evaluates which of the two “oldest” numbers is closer to meeting its respective safety threshold, and selects that telephone number to be allocated for display. By evaluating numbers according to the time of last display and time of last call, the system recycles numbers with the reduced probability for end-user confusion.

Due to the dual queue procedures, the system will not break catastrophically—it will only become gradually less safe if is overburdened. If numbers are displayed and called too often, all numbers will be below the minimum display and call thresholds, but the system will still function. In fact, it will produce the most safe number given the pool it has to deal with. In the case of overburden, the system will automatically cycle through the numbers faster, making them collectively more “dirty,” but not failing. In such a case, in process 2218 the system automatically issues a warning to the administrator at this point, indicating that more “clean” numbers need to be added to the number pool. In alternative embodiments, more or less of the processes described in relation to FIG. 22 may be used.

In addition to optimizing the cleanliness of the pool of telephone numbers, one embodiment of the system may execute procedures to improve efficiency of allocating recycled telephone numbers. FIG. 23 provides a flow diagram describing additional processes for allocating telephone numbers in accordance with one embodiment. In process 2302 the system determines if a particular advertisement (or different advertisements associated with the same advertiser) has summoned twice at the same website. If the particular advertisement (or different advertisements associated with the same advertiser) has been summoned twice at the same website, in process 2304 the system will reallocate the same phone number for both instances. If the particular advertisement (or different advertisements associated with the same advertiser) has not been summoned twice at the same website, in process 2306 the system may allocate a new phone number.

In addition, in one embodiment, when a caller dials a unique phone number that has been allocated by the system for display, in process 2308 the system checks whether that caller (identified uniquely by their caller ID) has ever dialed that unique phone number before. If so, in process 2310 the system connects the caller with the advertiser that originally was associated with that unique phone number even if the phone number has now been reallocated to a second advertiser. The probability is the greatest that the caller is repeat-calling the original advertiser. The chances are small that the same caller would call two different merchants who both happen to have been allocated the same unique phone number by the system. Therefore, for the increased likelihood of success, the system connects the caller to the advertiser that the caller has called previously, even if the phone number has since been reallocated.

In one embodiment, the system is also able to maintain separate pools of unique numbers based on a variety of factors. FIG. 24 presents a flow diagram describing the processes of maintaining the separate pools of unique telephone numbers in accordance with one embodiment. In process 2402, the system maintains different pools of telephone numbers corresponding to different partner syndicates. For instance, one large syndicate may request that none of its numbers ever be recycled to mix with a rival syndicate. In process 2404, the system maintains different pools of telephone numbers corresponding to different categories of advertisers. For example, the system may maintain separate telephone number pools for democratic and republican causes to reduce chances that callers will be connected by mistake to the other party.

In process 2406, in one embodiment, the system provides select advertisers, or groups of advertisers, with firm numbers that do not get recycled. Some advertisers, for instance, do not want their number to ever change or be recycled, and the system can omit these advertisers from the recycling procedures, to provide them with constant telephone numbers.

Similarly, in process 2408, in one embodiment, the system provides selected advertisers or groups of advertisers with specific telephone numbers for a specified duration of time. Afterwards, the telephone numbers may be recycled. For instance, a daily newspaper might publish the trackable phone numbers of the five travel agents who have special “deals of the day.” In this case, the phone numbers should not change for the duration of at least one day, after which they could then enter the recycling process.

In general, the routines executed to implement the embodiments of the invention, may be implemented as part of an operating system or a specific application, component, program, object, module or sequence of instructions referred to as “computer programs.” The computer programs typically comprise one or more instructions set at various times in various memory and storage devices in a computer, and that, when read and executed by one or more processors in a computer, cause the computer to perform operations necessary to execute elements involving the various aspects of the invention. Moreover, while the invention has been described in the context of fully functioning computers and computer systems, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the various embodiments of the invention are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that the invention applies equally regardless of the particular type of machine or computer-readable media used to actually effect the distribution. Examples of computer-readable media include but are not limited to recordable type media such as volatile and non-volatile memory devices, floppy and other removable disks, hard disk drives, optical disks (e.g., Compact Disk Read-Only Memory (CD ROMS), Digital Versatile Disks, (DVDs), etc.), among others, and transmission type media such as digital and analog communication links.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments, it will be evident that the various modification and changes can be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit of the invention as set forth in the claims. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than in a restrictive sense. 

1. A method, comprising: allocating a telephone number to an advertisement; and if the telephone number is not called for a predefined period of time, unallocating the telephone number to make the telephone number available to be assigned to a second advertisement.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein allocating the telephone number comprises allocating the telephone number to a second demand partner for inclusion in an associated advertisement provided by the second demand partner.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein dynamically allocating the telephone number comprises allocating the telephone number to a plurality of different advertisements.
 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising if the allocated telephone number is called, identifying an advertisement of the plurality of advertisements that corresponds to the call; assigning the telephone number to the corresponding advertisement for future calls; unassigning the telephone number from remaining advertisements of the plurality of advertisements.
 5. The method of claim 2, further comprising if the allocated telephone number is called, identifying a demand partner of the that corresponds to the call; assigning the telephone number to the corresponding demand partner for future calls; unassigning the telephone number from remaining demand partners.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the identifying the demand partner that corresponds to the call comprises identifying the demand partner based on a temporal proximity between when a demand partner served the associated advertisement and when the call occurred.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein a call is attributed to a demand partner if the particular demand partner is the only demand partner to have served the associated advertisement within a predefined time period before the call occurred.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein if more than one demand partner served the associated advertisement within the predefined time period, then the call is attributed the demand partners that served the associated advertisement within the predefined time period.
 9. The method of claim 8, further comprising compensating the demand partners, respectively, that served the associated advertisement within the predefined time period, based on a percentage of calls attributed to the respective demand partners.
 10. The method of claim 1, further comprising in response to a telephonic connection to the allocated telephone number, billing an advertiser for advertisement.
 11. The method of claim 10, further comprising billing the advertiser a first higher rate of at least two rates when an advertisement corresponding to the advertiser is displayed in a first position of at least two positions.
 12. The method of claim 1, wherein each demand partner has a separate web site corresponding to the respective demand partner.
 13. The method of claim 10, further comprising identifying a time of the telephonic connection to the allocated telephone number and billing the advertiser at a rate corresponding to the time of the telephonic connection.
 14. The method of claim 1, further comprising allocating the telephone number in response to request submitted by an end user to a demand partner.
 15. The method of claim 1, further comprising recording a time the allocated telephone number is displayed in an advertisement.
 16. The method of claim 15, further comprising recording the advertisement the allocated telephone number was displayed in.
 17. The method of claim 16, further comprising recording the demand partner that served the advertisement that included the allocated telephone number.
 18. The method of claim 1, further comprising maintaining a display queue of allocated telephone numbers that have been displayed.
 19. The method of claim 18, further comprising maintaining the display queue in an order relative to corresponding times of displaying respective allocated telephone numbers.
 20. The method of claim 18, further comprising selecting a first telephone number to be allocated from a set of telephone numbers, the first telephone number being the least recent telephone number of the set to have been displayed in an advertisement. 